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Piccolo, Saxo and Company (1958)

Musical Trip around the WorldThe puppet film Piccolo, Saxo And Company tells the story of a family of stringed instruments on their quest to find other families of musical instruments. They succeed, and in the end the symphony orchestra is born.A 15-minute cinema commercial for Philips Electronics.

Trivia

Camera and animation were in the capable hands of Joop Bekker and (his future wife) Geert Bekker-Knoef. Note the remarkably smooth camera work, particularly the opening scene.As the story unfolds, the number of musical instruments grows; each one had to be animated. For the scenes showing all the instruments walking by, so-called replacement legs were used. In this technique, pioneered by George Pal, each musical instrument had a series of legs carved out of wood, one pair for one individual frame. The legs were replaced from frame to frame, thus creating smooth, consistent walk cycles for all the instruments. Günther Mandl (not credited) assisted in this process. Below are some production stills from the film.

The film utilized the new Philips Sound System to achieve a superb, natural-sounding sound quality. Unfortunately the film's excellent video and audio qualities have suffered noticeably in this print, due to generational losses.

Some of the film's crew claimed that this was the only Dollywood production ever to be nominated for an Academy Award as best animated short. The film never won the Oscar, but picked up many other international awards.Until the late '60's Piccolo and his musical company introduced elementary school children to symphonic orchestra music. André Popp's music is quite catchy. Release of an LP record in 1967 (voiced in Dutch by Cruys Voorberg), almost 10 years after the film's original release, is proof of the film's enduring popularity. The next year (1968), a sequel was released on LP, "Passport for Piccolo and Saxo", possibly with a film version in mind.

Crowning these achievements by end of the 20th century was a CD release of both LPs.

Different remakes and interpretations of the film can be found on the internet, like these ones in French, Spanish, or even as a live performance.